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That elevator ride is part of Burj Dubai's ((At the Top of the
World" visitor experience, which includes 360-degree views
from the glass-enclosed observation deck and a balcony for
those who dare to step outside. Beginning with the tour's
entrance at the Dubai Mall, interactive multimedia exhibits
will showcase the tower's extraordinary building process and
logistical challenges like transporting thousands of workers up
into the sky and pumping concrete to such great heights.
Special telescopes will provide real-time and historic
views of Dubai, whose skyline and coastline have changed
dramatically in recent years. From the man-made palm-shaped
islands jutting out from the city's beaches to the high-rises
lining Sheikh Zayed Road, Dubai has established itself as an
architectural innovator, transforming a sleepy desert outpost
into a world-class destination.
Many of the city's bolder projects have pushed the
boundaries of imagination. For instance, the Burj Al Arab hotel
is a thousand-foot - tall skyscraper built on a sandy manmade
island-a feat that involved designing a honeycomb-patterned
base around the island's perimeter to prevent erosion from
waves of the Persian Gulf. The hotel, designed by Tom Wright,
to resemble the sail of a dhow has a Teflon -coated membrane
that reflects sunlight, helping cool the building by day and
transforming into a screen for a light show at night.
A remarkable structure now literally dotting the skyline is
the twenty- two-story office building called 0-14 that is rising
up in Dubai's Business Bay commercial district, which is being
developed along an extension of Dubai Creek. Unlike most
modern skyscrapers, which have a glass curtain-wall exterior,
0-14 has a thick concrete façade with more than a thousand
holes of different sizes, a design that takes its inspiration partly
from decorative Islamic lattice screens.
((The big innovation was that we pulled all the structure to
the outside of the building-an exoskeleton that also becomes
a sunscreen;' says Jesse Reiser, a co-founder of the New York
City architecture firm Reiser + Umemoto, who designed 0-14
with his partner Nanako Umemoto.
Since there is a three-foot gap between the perforated
concrete shell and 0-14' s glass windows, air pulled in through
the open holes rises up in a chimney effect, cooling the
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building's glazing. That feature is a modern twist on the old
Arabic practice of creating structures with wind towers. In this
case, it reduces cooling costs by thirty per cent. Besides this
environmental benefit, the design also has interesting effects
on the dappled light that enters the building.
((You don't have the same sense of horizon that you do in
a normal building;' Reiser says. ((You get staccato snapshots
of the skyline and the sky, and there's a variation in light and
dark that I think will affect the way people organize their office
space. It's a very different kind of ambience:'
Yet another of 0-14's design innovations IS creating a
colonnade at the base of the building, which will serve as a
gateway to the waterfront esplanade of Business Bay. Reiser says
that the goal was to allow the public to filter through the arcade,
experiencing the unique façade at its base as well as connecting
to the waterway-an idea the developer embraced.
((There's a spirit of experimentation in Dubai, and just the
energy of building in a city like that is something you don't
encounter often;' Reiser says.
Indeed, some of the world's most daring designs have been
envisioned with Dubai in mind. Architect and developer David
Fisher hopes to build an intriguing Dynamic Tower, which
would have eighty floors rotating independently at different
speeds and directions and ideally generate its own electricity
using wind turbines mounted between floors. The spiral-
shaped Infinity Tower, designed by SOM, is a seventy-three-
story residential tower being built in the Dubai Marina district
that has a ninety-degree twist from its base to its roof-an
unprecedented structural achievement.
With Dubai's abundant sunlight and desert winds, the
landscape offers the potential to harness solar energy and wind
power in ways developers and architects are just now working
into their ambitious plans, and Wood believes insights gained
from building the Burj Dubai will benefit future skyscrapers all
over the world.
((We're learning so much;' he says. ((This is like flying
to the moon:'
Visit DefinitelyDubai.com for more information.
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